Ex John Lewis boss splashes £1 MILLION on campaign to be Birmingham's mayor

Andy Street spends a fortune on wooing voters as rivals call for a level playing field

by Neil Elkes

05:00, 25 Apr 2017Updated11:06, 28 Apr 2017

Conservative West Midlands Mayor candidate Andy Street’s campaign has cost an estimated £1 MILLION – dwarfing that of his rivals.

The former John Lewis boss has inundated hundreds of thousands of households across the region with his bright-green liveried ‘Champion’ newspapers, leaflets and mailshots bearing his image and campaign pledges – a style of campaigning that is not cheap.

While there is a strict spending limit of about £130,000 during the final five weeks leading up to the May 4 election, there is no cap on spending before that, and most of Mr Street’s material was distributed during January, February and March.

Despite commitments to transparency in office, both the Conservative and Labour campaigns have REFUSED to provide details of their funding, declining to say how much they have spent – or who has donated the money.

Yet this information will have to be declared to the Electoral Commission by mid-June, and details of larger donations will be published on its website later in the year.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat candidate Beverley Nielsen has revealed her campaign has raised about £50,000 – about five per cent of Mr Street’s.

Although there is no official confirmation, the figure of £1 million has been quoted and not challenged by the campaign.

Newspapers published by Conservative West Midlands Mayor candidate Andy Street

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Campaign sources say all of it has been raised from donors who believe either in the Conservative Party’s values or Mr Street’s leadership abilities. They say he worked hard last year to persuade potential supporters to get their chequebooks out, although – as a close ally of Prime Minister Theresa May – he was also given the chance to pitch to Conservative Party donors.

It has been widely pointed out that Mr Street stepped down from his £800,000 to £1 million-a-year job as managing director of John Lewis to run for office. If elected, he will be paid less than £80,000.

Andy Street speaking at Conservative Party Conference at ICC Birmingham

Earlier this year, Mr Street told the Birmingham Mail’s sister Coventry Telegraph newspaper that the campaign fund worked out at about 50 pence per head – it adds up to £950,000 across 1.9 million voters – and denied he had put in his own money.

“I would ask how much money the unions have made available to the Labour Party?” he asked.

How much has Labour spent?

In contrast, Labour rival Sion Simon has struggled to win even the backing of the party’s biggest trade union donor, Unite. The union withdrew a promised £10,000 donation in a row surrounding the recent re-election of Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey.

Labour’s campaign spending is thought to be between £100,000 and £200,000. Given this shortfall, it has focused on social media – mainly Facebook – campaigning and phone banks, where volunteers call up voters to ask for their support.

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Labour has the advantage of 20,000 members across the region, many of whom are out knocking doors and campaigning every weekend.

A Labour Party source said: “London money is flooding in to Street’s campaign. The London establishment is backing their man but it’s our election, not theirs.

“We’ll have spent a tenth of what the Tories have. But what they don’t have is an army of volunteers, actually from here, with fire in their bellies, who are calling voters and knocking on their doors morning, noon and night.”

A Street campaign spokesman responded: “The Andy4wm campaign has fundraised almost entirely within the West Midlands and everything we have raised has come because individuals believe in what we are trying to achieve here for our region.

“This, combined with an unprecedented level of local volunteer support, has enabled us to run a campaign that has raised awareness of the election and communicate our plan to improve life for everyone in the West Midlands.”

Lib Dem calls for level playing field on campaign funding

Beverley Nielsen.

Lib Dem candidate Beverley Nielsen has also raised concerns about the chasm in funding, branding it ‘disheartening’.

“However, much passion, energy, ability and desire any candidate puts into the Mayoral election, the single most crucial issue is obviously the ability to access finance,” she said.

“You have to pay for support staff, IT provision, election literature, social media campaigns, occasional expenses for volunteers and the enormous travel costs required to regularly criss-cross such a large region.”

She argues that campaigns should have a level playing field and a strict spending cap throughout, not just in the final weeks.

The minimum cost of running for mayor is the £5,000 deposit required to put yourself on the ballot paper, which is refunded if you secure five per cent of the vote.

An optional £5,000 fee is also charged to appear in the official booklet delivered to 1.9 million voters – sources have suggested both UKIP candidate Pete Durnell and Communist Graham Stevenson have just raised enough to cover these costs.

The Birmingham Mail says

THERE have been some bold promises from our mayoral candidates to be open and transparent.

Conservative Andy Street has talked about being the most transparent mayor in Britain in his manifesto.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Sion Simon talks of building a new democracy where the mayor will be open to public scrutiny, and will freely share data.